I was either a junior or senior in high school when I first read HG and I figure that’s pretty close to the perfect age. I was deep into Monty Python, Doctor Who, The Young Ones and any other British comedy that the PBS station out of Chicago slapped on the air on Sunday late nights (Dave Allen at Large anyone? The Two Ronnies?) But I read the first three books too many times so they wore rather thin for me. I liked the first Dirk Gently book; didn’t care for the second and don’t even know if there was a third. Didn’t initially care much for SLATFATF and absolutely detested MH the first time through. I sold off loads of my books years ago and the HG quintilogy was among the ones to go.
Fast forward to last year when the local B&N had the complete HG plus an original Zaphod story in a collected work, marked down roughly 80%. I picked it up and slogged through them. Enough time had passed and I’d forgotten enough that a lot of the material seemed fresh and new and enjoyable again. Mostly the little genius asides included as HG entries. Was not looking forward to SLATFATF but was pleasantly surprised at how readable I found it. Really was not looking forward to MH but to my shock I found it the best-written book of the set. The end was ruly harrowing. It wasn’t a funny book and I think that pissed off a lot of fans and let down people who went into it expecting a larf, but it’s a much better book than it’s given credit for being.
I think the implication is that, after the visit with Agrajag, Arthur was somehow due for death, and that the only thing keeping him alive was the fact that he had not yet made his predestined visit to Stavromula Beta.
The books don’t have much in the way of cohesiveness or plot, it’s true, but then, they’re not really supposed to. I think they’re intended as a collage of silly jokes, and they certainly work that way.
Arthur new he couldn’t die until he had met Agrajag again…
Spoiler alert for anyone who didn’t read Mostly Harmless…
at the end of Mostly Harmless - Trillian warns that a race of aliens[
are about to do something “very misguided” and that everyone needs to leave… Arthur then declares - “If I’m here, we’re safe” - - then Agrajag gets shot - - Arthur realises where he is Stavro Mueller BETA… and suddenly he can die - - so the warnings are suddenly relevant… it didn’t mean because he was there he would die - - if you see what I mean.
I think it’s a pretty good twist/conclusion to the whole Agrajag thing myself…
I loved all the books - even The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul that nobody seems to like and Last Chance to See that nobody cares about.
Sometimes I think this might be because for me the science fiction aspect was never as important as for many other people. It was just a plot device to put the strange events into some context, just like ghosts or norse gods.
The novels were just an excuse for Adams to show off his wordplay and humor, IMO. And yes, Adams was funny, but largely in that dry and surreal manner reminescent of all British comedians. Scientists have long speculated on the nature of this phenomenon, and have gotten ludicrously rich spending government grant money into investigating it.
But yeah, while I’ve always thought Adams was funny, I’ve also maintained (and still do) that Terry Pratchett outshines him by a major order of magnitude. And I think the first three novels stand well on their own, even with the last being essentially a recycled Dr. Who plot. The last two novels were fun to read, but thematically were far too different from the first three to really belong with them.
Sure he’s lighthearted, and good for maybe 5 minor chuckles per book, but Adams rarely goes more than a few pages without making me laugh out loud. I don’t really have anything bad to say about Pratchett, because I do indeed like him, but I’ve never understood why people talk about how funny he is.
If you can only find five or so mildly amusing things in a Discworld book, then you’re either not noticing or not enjoying the things that some other readers find amusing. There’s no mystery about it, just personal taste.
Read Salmon of Doubt, and all will become clear. Douglas Adams was never really a very cheerful fellow, he always seemed to be cynical to the point of miserable. And he was the world’s worst procrastinator.
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”
All his Hitchhikers books were written on the behest of others, against his better judgement. But he got paid an absurd amount of money to do the later sequels, so he did them.
I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoyed all of them too - and am currently reading (and caring very much about) Last Chance to See, which has some of his funniest writing in it. I also enjoyed reading Salmon of Doubt, which really offered a lot of insight into the kind of person Douglas Adams was.
I thought he was a great person, and probably my favorite author of all time. It’s kind of upsetting to see a whole thread dedicated to trashing him, especially since he’s gone :(.
The ideas in the trilogy were wonderful. The improbability drive. The total perspective vortex. The SEP field. Priceless. And I found the original 3 books of the trilogy funny. Maybe less so after long years, but funny anyway. He was sending up the genre. The genre has moved on. He was also sending up the foibles of that time. Now that we’re no longer in that time and at that state of the genre, we no longer hear the thin wheeeee as each small unconsidered pomposity is pricked and deflated slightly. If you can’t remember why particular bits were funny, you’ll have to contact an old fart for annotations. Pity.
I didn’t like books 4 and 5, except for a few isolated bits, but I liked the idea of a trilogy with 5 books in it.
In a way, I’m glad that I read the books, then read the radio script, and then heard the radio tapes. I think that’s the optimal order. I could have done without the shoe archaeologists and the stuck cloning machine, but I’ll live with it.
I’ve never heard the record, and the TV show was middling all right and played the right theme song. I hear there was also a spin-off towel. I think the Dirk Gently books are even better than the Hitchhiker ones. They’re definitely easier to re-read. Oh, I think it’s been pointed out on the boards before that the first Dirk Gently was a re-write of a Dr. Who episode. I hadn’t known about the krikket one.
Does anyone know if there’s ever been a comic book version? I think Hitchhiker’s could make a wonderful comic book. Or a really terrible one. Either way, since each incarnation in each medium has been different, there can’t be much griping about continuity. Or there could be a lot of griping and we’d all enjoy ourselves immensely. Either way, I think a comic would be a winner.
Yes, there has been a comic book version - I only flicked through it years back, and have no idea who was responsible, but it was bloody awful.
Pretty much agree with most opinions posted on the books: first one was excellent, second was very good, third was OK, and by the time he got to the fifth it was practically unreadable. Dirk Gently was just re-heated Dr Who scripts, and Last Chance To See was, in my opinion, one of the best things he ever did: leaves you wishing he had done more non-fiction.
The Salmon Of Doubt was just a cynical rip-off by his literary executors, who pretty much just emptied out the remaining contents of his hard drives, most of which hadn’t been published previously for a very good reason, padded them out with a couple of speeches and magazine articles of his, added a preface and an afterword, and called it a book.
Sadly, I think he was just too lazy to be a professional writer, and being cursed with the overnight and massive popular and financial success of HHGTTG and RATEOTU meant he never really had to work again, and so didn’t put his back into his work in the way that most authors have to in order to establish themselves: eight and a half thinnish books of highly variable quality isn’t much to show for a 25 year writing career. A shame, really, because I think he did largely squander a genuine talent. He did introduce Richard Dawkins to Lalla Ward, though, which has to count for something.
Just to chime in and say the same thing as (nearly) everyone else. The radio series was rolling on the floor funny (sings - Share and enjoy, share and enjoy) and clever. The first two books were funny but were the same material/stories pretty much, as the radio series. The third book (and current radio series*****) was sporadically amusing. The last two HHG books just didn’t fit with the others, I don’t want to lay into them, but there’s no way I’ll be picking them up again. Last Chance to See however is a good read, and I liked the Dirk Gently books.
*****Anyone else here listening to this? What do you make of it? So far I’m only laughing at some of Ford Prefects lines and some of the Guide’s entries that I’ve forgotten. I suppose already knowing things like the SEP field, Bistromath and what the Krikkit robots are up to takes some of the edge off it
I was not all impressed with the novels. Adams could come up with a superb joke, given time, and he takes a lot of time doing it, wasting the rest with fill that’s not particularly funny.
I first heard about HHG at an SF con, when someone spent about ten minutes describing the book to me. Sounded so good I went out and got it. I realized he had hit every single one of the funny lines. The rest was badly strained humor.
When I saw the TV show, I thought it was much better, primarily because of Simon Jones. He managed to wring out every ounce of humor in every one of Arthur Dent’s lines; Adams should have given him a big cut of all of his earnings. I suspect Jones did the same for the radio version.
Spot on - not that great. Amusing, yes, but I wasn’t as taken with them as many members of the board seem to be. I bought the big ole combined one at B&N at the aforementioned 80% off (cost me like 5 bucks - thought it was a steal!) because everyone here raved about them and I thought I needed to see what the fuss was about. Only got through the first one; so far I haven’t been bothered to read the rest.
Because (at least in my opinion) he’s not only hilarious in a way that Douglas Adams really couldn’t sustain beyond The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (if that, HHGTTG was by far his funniest book), he is a far, far more talented writer.
I’ve always considered Pratchett to be fantasy’s answer to Adams, I just think Pratchett is far more consistent in his writing greatness, if you will. I have yet to read a single Pratchett novel I didn’t enjoy, and that includes his series geared towards Young Adult readers (also based off Discworld).
I think the first three books are all great. Personally, I liked Restaurant at the End of the Universe the best. The other two…well… I’m not going to defend them too vigorously, but I think they have their moments.
I have yet to read a single Pratchett novel I didn’t enjoy, and that includes his series geared towards Young Adult readers (also based off Discworld).